Planning for Change: OFSTED Report

The Impact of the new KS3 Curriculum

A new OFSTED report was published this week, looking at the progress of some of the new approaches that schools introduced as a result of the introduction of the new KS3 national curriculum.

Summary

The new National Curriculum at Key Stage 3 came into effect for students starting in Year 7 in September 2008. This survey was conducted between May 2008 and March 2009 to evaluate the quality of schools’ planning to introduce the new curriculum and their progress in introducing the changes. Inspectors based their evaluations on the progress which schools might reasonably have been expected to have made at that early stage of implementation. The schools in the survey had embraced the opportunity to introduce more variety into teaching and learning to engage and motivate students. They had made less progress in linking subjects and incorporating skills across the curriculum, although there were examples of good and outstanding practice in these areas.

It has some interesting things to say about the introduction of thematic curriculum approaches rather than SINGLE SUBJECT teaching.

Report can be downloaded from OFSTED website